Chapter 2: The revenge of the beast

After a few days where Sherlock had worked nonstop through all the evidence and information he had for the case he finally found a pattern. John was still not himself, working double shifts, hiding in his room and ignoring Sherlock and especially the case most of the time. He didn't even remind Sherlock to eat or sleep. There was a quick cup of tea in the morning but not like on a normal case.

So he didn't tell John about it because his friend's behavior was getting stranger from day to day. Without informing him, Sherlock headed to Scotland Yard to meet up with Lestrade and maybe build a plan to catch the killer and the beast.

After arriving Sherlock told the Yarders what all victims had in common. They were all criminals.

The first victim Jeffrey August, 42, had been in a pub a few hours before he was killed. He had met a young woman, he flirted with her but she pushed him off. He got angry and started a fight with the barkeeper. He was made to leave. But instead of heading home he waited close to the pub door for the woman to come out, followed her into the first dark alley and attacked her. Sherlock had found the report he had looked for the place where the victim had been taken. Jeffrey August had tried to rape the woman but quote 'a huge black shadow' had taken her attacker away and she had run to the next police station.

Second victim, Georg McCarthy, 21, was the boss of a local youth gang, dealing with drugs, collecting protection money from small shops. He had been beating up a 16 year old boy who had tried to protect his grandfather who couldn't pay the protection money for his little shop. Witnesses had said that the beast was only seen as a big black light, too fast to see it properly and that it probably ran into the alley and took the attacker away.

The latest and third victim was the classical stalker typ. Her object of obsession was her ex-boyfriend's fiancé. He had left her because of her obsessive behavior and after he had found someone new, the fake phone calls had started. She appeared uninvited at their home and once had even poisoned the coffee only the new woman in her ex-boyfriend's life drank. This time she had had a knife in her handbag while entering their home. The woman was unharmed because before Audrey Rogers could attack her the beast had appeared, bit in her arm and pulled her away. She had lost the knife during that. It was in the hands of the police as evidence already.

All victims had been killed while committing a criminal act. All had been attack at the same time of night (around midnight) and all the crime scenes were the victims had been committing their crime of choice were in the same area, in places were normally no one would be around at that time of night. Sherlock explained his conclusions to Lestrade and his team.

Of cause there were a few voices in the crowd (Anderson) who weren't convinced at first but after Sherlock presented the reports from the crime scene were the victims were abducted no one questioned it anymore.

"Sherlock, in all the reports only the beast is mentioned; there is no description whatsoever of the murderer we are looking for." And finally one of them had understood what Sherlock had been trying to tell them.

"That's right, Lestrade, the beast was alone. That means it's either somehow trained to abduct a specific person or there is no person behind the beast or it was pure coincidence that all of our victims were about to commit a crime. But the universe is rarely that lazy. So I think we can rule out that it was coincidence and build a plan to catch the beast." A hum of agreement came from the others but they waited for Lestrade to talk.